Friday, December 30, 2011

Warning: This particular essay on The
Mephisto Waltz is loaded with spoilers. If you haven’t yet seen the film and
wish to discover its surprises for yourself, stop reading now and come back later.
I’ll still be here.

One of the more effective,
least exploitative entries in the post-Rosemary’s Baby occult sweepstakes (before The Exorcist came along and switched up the game-plan, entirely), is 1971’s The Mephisto Waltz. Adapted from the
1969 novel by Fred Mustard Stewart - which was itself a rather loud echoing of
Ira Levin’s 1967 novel - The Mephisto Waltz
is a Satanic thriller which succeeds in being enjoyably stylish, suspenseful,
and marvelously kinky, while never actually giving Roman Polanski’s now-iconic film any
serious competition.

Jacqueline Bisset as Paula Clarkson

Alan Alda as Myles Clarkson

Barbara Parkins as Roxanne Delancey

Curd Jurgens as Duncan Ely

Bradford Dillman as Bill Delancy

Myles Clarkson (Alda), a failed-musician
turned struggling music-journalist, lands an interview with world-famous classical
pianist, Duncan Ely (Jurgens). Taking note of Myles’ lyrical way with the
buttons on his tape recorder, the ageing virtuoso (“I happen to be the greatest
pianist alive!”) marvels at Myles’ perfect-for-the-piano fingers and declares him
to possess“Rachmaninoff hands.” Hands that, according to Duncan (who should know,
I guess), only one in one hundred thousand possess.

And for the record, Duncan, when
not discovering new talent or wowing audiences with impassioned performances of Franz Liszt’s The Mephisto Waltz (“They don’t
understand that after a concert, there’s blood on the piano keys!”), finds time to be a practicing Satanist.

While studying those concert pianist fingers, Miles fails to note how short his life-line suddenly got

Having already learned from Rosemary’s Baby just how pushy devil-worshippers
can be, it comes as no surprise when Duncan and his witchily feline daughter,
Roxanne (Parkins), begin aggressively insinuating themselves into the lives of
Myles, his beautiful, no-nonsense wife Paula (Bisset), and their conveniently-disappearing daughter Abby (Pamelyn Ferdin). Faster than you can say “tannis root,” we find out that Duncan, who is dying of leukemia, has plans to serve Myles’ soul with an
eviction notice and take up residence in his lean yet alarmingly flabby body
ASAP…with a little help from the devil, of course.

Will the ever-suspicious
Paula, distrustful and jealous of the fawning attentions of Duncan and Roxanne
from the start, unearth the dark secret behind this creepily close-knit father/
daughter duo? Or will her pugnacious, Nancy Drew-curiosity and fortitude
(“…Well, I’m just one grade too tough!”) only serve to place her and her family
in greater danger?

The answers to this and many
more suitable-for-a-Black-Sabbath questions are answered in The Mephisto Waltz …a Quinn Martin
production. No, really, it is. The sole foray into feature film production by
the man who gave us The Fugitive, The F.B.I., Barnaby Jones, The Streets of
San Francisco, etc. However, to my great disappointment, The Mephisto Waltz is lacking in those
two great QM Production trademarks: the authoritarian narrator and the title
card breakdown of the story into separate acts and an epilogue.

This strikingly bizarre publicity photo showing Barbara Parkins in the company of a dog wearing a human mask was used extensively in promoting The Mephisto Waltz in 1971

WHAT I LOVE ABOUT THIS FILM

As I stated in a previous
post, I consider Rosemary’s Baby to be one of the
smartest, most effectively chilling films ever made; flawlessly effective both as a horror film and a psychological thriller. It’s
not only Roman Polanski’s cleverly black-humored approach to the material or the
finely-observed performances he elicits from his cast, but the source novel by Ira
Levin itself is a masterfully structured bit of Modern Gothic. A superior
example of contemporary horror.

When The Mephisto Waltz opened in theaters, the advance promotional buzz centered around its similarities to Rosemary’s
Baby. It promised to be just as scary, only sexier. I was all hopped up to see it, but, being
only 14 at the time, my mother (whose attentions were well-intentioned, if
inconsistent) wouldn’t let me see the R-rated feature. I had to satisfy my curiosity with a paperback copy of the novel from the local library. Upon reading it, I was
delighted to find the novel to be a genuinely suspenseful page-turner with a resourceful female protagonist tryint to protect her home and family from sinister forces. Just the sort of thing Ira Levin specialized in.

FACE-OFFBisset and co-star bare their fangs

Jump ahead to the 1980s and
adulthood, and I finally get to see The
Mephisto Waltz at a revival theater on a double-bill with its spirit cousin, Rosemary’s Baby. I wasn't disappointed. It’s no Rosemary’s Baby
by a long-shot, but what it is is a nicely-crafted thriller that earns its chills honestly: through atmosphere, character and suspense. If the
contrivances of plot seem somewhat rushed, and the performances and direction
only occasionally above the your average '70s-era Movie of the Week TV standard; The Mephisto Waltz distinguishes itself
from the usual occult fare by force of sheer style. It's a great-looking movie enlivened by the air of kinky sexuality and amorality present in both its theme and main characters.

The entire premise of The Mephisto Waltz asks that we accept that these two breathtaking beauties would be willing to fight, commit murder, and bargain their souls to the devil for...

...this body.

PERFORMANCES

When it comes to those flickering images of the gods and goddesses of the silver screen,
sometimes (perhaps too often, in fact) I find myself guilty of exactly the kind of
superficiality I thoroughly abhor in real-life: I cut the beautiful a great deal
of slack. Jacqueline Bisset is so stunning that I think I’m not as objective
about her acting ability as I might be. Frequently saddled with ornamental
roles during this stage of her career (she matured to a much more accomplished actress later), The Mephisto Waltz offers Bisset
a sizable lead role offering a considerable emotional range. So, how does she fare?
With her precise, clipped British diction and somewhat remote demeanor, Bisset handles the
scenes requiring her character to be sarcastic and confrontational pretty well. But she's a tad less
effective in scenes requiring she convey her character’s vulnerability and
fragile emotional state.

That being said, who cares! (OK, call me superficial) Jacqueline
Bisset is so absolutely GORGEOUS in this movie, I'm certain I'd be content just watching her defrosting a freezer.

Jacqueline Bisset goes to HadesIn The Mephisto Waltz, we see that converting to Satanism requires considerably less formal instruction than converting to Christianity or Judaism

As if that weren't enough,
there’s lovely Barbara Parkins (looking like a million bucks) cast in the kind
of femme fatale role her steely eyes and honeyed voice always hinted at (she would
have made a sensational Catwoman). She’s absolutely splendid and a great deal of fun to watch. Especially as her frequent bitch-fest scenes with Bisset
always seem on the verge of a turning into a literal cat-fight which never materializes (I can dream,
can't I?).

Sticking out like a sore
thumb amongst all this portentous pulchritude is ol’ “Hawkeye” himself, Alan
Alda; looking for all the world like a film-school intern who’d wandered accidentally
in front of the camera. Alda has always seemed like a very nice guy to me, so I
won’t go on about how badly miscast I think he is (Bisset’s then-boyfriend, Michael
Sarrazin, would have been great in the role...or perhaps, Keir Dullea who was also very easy on the eyes), just suffice it to say that a huge chunk of plot credibility (pertaining to his sexual desirability) flies out the door every time he appears.

THE STUFF OF FANTASY

I think one of the reasons I've never seen an occult film to ever come close to capturing Rosemary’s Baby’s intensity and efficacy is due to the fact that few of these films, once they latch onto their particular Satanic
gimmick, ever give much thought as to how the film might play to those who find it impossible to buy into the traditional concept of Satan. Polanski was smart enough to make his horror film as though he were constructing a paranoid psychological suspense thriller. It works because the structure
of the plot is viable whether you buy into the religious myth or not. In films like The Mephisto Waltz, the more implausible particulars of the occult gimmick in question (soul switching, in this case) are introduced so quickly that scant time is devoted to convincing us how otherwise practical characters come to believe in the inconceivable so swiftly.

Bad RomanceIn his shot from the decadent New Year's Eve costume ball sequence, Alan Alda (in fez and monkey mask) and Barbara Parkins offer further proof that just about everything Lady Gaga does has been done before

Jacqueline Bisset’s Paula is far
too suspicious far too soon and it tips the hand of the plot. Likewise Myles’ swift,
unquestioning acceptance of Duncan’s largess. Alda’s character is such a blank
to us (we're given no sense of his values from the getgo, so we never know whether his abrupt acceptance by the jet-set crowd compromises them) that the eradication of his soul holds no dramatic weight. How
poignant his death would be were we afforded a sense of what it meant to him to reignite his abandoned music career. To know this would certainly inform our understanding of how his defeated
sense of self is flattered by the attentions of one as rich and successful as
Duncan Ely.

On a similar note, vis a vis the speed with which The Mephisto Waltz speeds along its course, I’ve never seen the
death of a child in a movie given such short shrift. First off, Bisset looks
like nobody’s mom on this planet,
least of all Pamelyn Ferdin, a child actress who seemed to be everywhere in the 70s (What's The Matter With Helen?). Secondly, in
order to move things along as expeditiously as possible, Bisset's character, a mother whose only child dies suddenly and under mysterious circumstances, mourns for all of 24 hours before resuming her witch hunt and smoldering with desire for her husband. Whoever he is at this point.

In skimming over the human
drama, The Mephisto Waltz, like so
many other genre films, fails to give audiences sufficient time to become sufficiently engaged in the lives of the characters. A move which always winds up coming back to bite the film on the ass, undercutting, as it does, audience involvement in the outcome of the conflict.

THE STUFF OF DREAMS

As an occult thriller, The Mephisto Waltz plays it pretty
straightforward down the line, telling its story crisply and entertainingly. That it doesn't always make the most of the possibilities posed by its bizarre story is to me the film's major setback. There's suspense and tension, but never
once is the film truly unsettling or disturbing. Certainly not as much as it could have been, given the fundamental
amorality of it all.

There’s a layer of a body-fetish/sex-addiction subplot lying below the surface of The
Mephisto Waltz’s soul-transplant theme that calls for a director attuned to
the revulsion/attraction of body horror…someone like David Cronenberg. The
fetish object in The Mephisto Waltz
is Myles Clarkson. Or his body, to be precise. Duncan Ely wants him for his youth, but specifically for his
hands. Roxanne wants her father, Duncan, and is willing to get to him through
the body of Clarkson. Most perverse of all, when Paula finally learns that her
husband is dead and that another man inhabits his body…it’s the body she
wants, and (to her own surprise) she doesn’t really care who's inhabiting it.

The film is awash with scenes
and dialog emphasizing Myles’ body and physical desirability, both before and
after its possession by Duncan:

Roxanne: (Ostensibly asking
Paula’s permission to make a life-mask of Myles, but everybody knows what she's driving at) “It’s alright then, I can do
him?”

Abby: (To Paula about their
newly acquired dog) “He wants daddy.”

Paula: “Don’t we all.”

Paula's best friend: "Oh! He's sexy...don't you think he's sexy? You should know better than I!"

Roxanne's ex-husband, Bill (Bradford Dillman) to Paula after
she confesses that she still finds Myles sexually irresistible even
though she knows it isn’t truly him: “They say the truth is, once you've had one of
them [a Satan-worshipper] nothing
else will quite satisfy you.”

Duncan Is Going To Feel Like A New Man When he Wakes Up...Literally

With the utter disposability of
Myles, the man, contrasted with escalating battles for his body; the overarching
feeling you’re left with is that everybody loves Myles in parts, but not as a whole.
Kind of like a perverse corruption of Cole Porter’s song, “The Physician.”

There’s certainly nothing
wrong with having a story to tell and relaying it in as efficient and entertaining
a manner as possible. The Mephisto Waltz
succeeds on that score. But had it taken the time to explore the story’s
emotional and sub-textural themes…who knows? It might have been a genuine Rosemary’s Baby contender.

Tuesday, December 27, 2011

“After Michael
Redgrave played the insane ventriloquist in Dead of Night, bits of the
character’s paranoia kept turning up in his other performances; it would be
hair-raising if Faye Dunaway were to have trouble shaking off the gorgon Joan.”
Pauline Kael - The
New Yorker Oct.1981

I grew up during a time when it was common practice to apply
hairbrushes, belts, or sturdy switches (a thin branch from a tree or a stalk
from a root or plant) to the backsides of children in the interest of instilling "discipline." Back then, kids knew the likely consequence of disobedience or backtalk was to get “a
whipping” (spanked), or, if in public, a pluck to the ears or smack to the back
of the head (seriously!). Misdeeds failing to warrant physical punishment were
met with verbal reprimands ("Shut up back there!”), threats (“Mouth off to me again and I’ll
slap you clear into next week!”), or other colorful forms of what we now know to be verbal/psychological abuse (“What are you, stupid?”).

Welcome to Parenting 101: The Pre Dr. Spock years. Whether
it be corporal punishment, verbal abuse, or psychological intimidation (“Wait
‘til your father gets home!”); our parents did it to us because their parents
did it to them. No one bothered to question such behavior for the administering of strict parental discipline was widely
held at the time to be the single ingredient marking the difference between the raising
of a worthless juvenile delinquent, or a contributing member of society.

This hurts me more than it does you

This is one reason why, when I first read Mommie Dearest—Christina Crawford’s bestselling memoir detailing
the physical abuse she suffered at the hands of her adoptive mother, screen
legend Joan Crawford—I was among those who had no problem believing the
allegations made against Crawford to be true. For those of us who grew up in the "spare
the rod, spoil the child” era, the behavior described in Mommie Dearest was
considerably less shocking than who was engaging in it: Mildred Pierce herself,
Joan Crawford.

If ever there was an individual who epitomized the words
“movie star,” it was Joan Crawford. Everything about her finely burnished image
fed the public perception of her as a hardworking, glamorous star of ladylike hauteur
and refinement. While other stars were battling studio heads, suffering public
meltdowns (would Mommie Dearest have caused such a sensation had its
subject been one of Hollywood’s more famously unstable stars like Judy Garland?),
and living flashy lives of decadent excess, Joan always conducted herself as though she were Hollywood’s unofficial Goodwill Ambassador.

Published in 1978 (only one year after Crawford’s death), Mommie Dearest caused quite a sensation.
Not only was it one of the earliest examples of the tell-all celebrity memoir, but it was one of the first popular books to shed light on the problem of child abuse.
These days, I would welcome any public figure who didn’t feel compelled to publicly air their abuses, addictions, and mental-illnesses; but
in 1978, it was a rare thing indeed to publish such an incendiary airing of dirty-laundry
about a movie star. Especially one with an image as scrupulously manicured as that
of Joan Crawford.

I saw the film Mommie
Dearest the day it opened at Hollywood's
Mann's Chinese Theater in 1981. By this time the bestseller had become
something of a cause célèbre, galvanizing public opinion into three distinct camps:
1) Those who accepted the portrayal of Joan Crawford as a child-abusing,
alcoholic, germaphobe; 2) Those who believed Christina’s allegations to have
been greatly exaggerated and motivated by greed and vindictiveness; and, 3) Those
who reveled in the memoir’s voyeuristic sensationalism and camp-tastic portrayal
of a headstrong diva thoroughly out of control.

To this latter group, the events of Mommie Dearest somehow bypassed sympathetic analysis and barreled
headlong into being a book enjoyed as a Jacqueline Susann- esque hybrid of old
Joan Crawford movies (specifically Queen Bee, Harriet Craig, and Mildred Pierce) crossed with The Bad Seed. I don’t know whether it
was Crawford’s grand diva posturing or society’s deep-seated resentment of the
rich and famous, but there was just something about Mommie Dearest that many readers found irresistibly satirical.

Pathos UnderminedBeing screamed at by your mother: TraumaticBeing screamed at by your mother who's decked out in a sleep mask, chin strap, and night gloves: Priceless

However the memoir was received, the one thing everybody agreed upon was that Mommie Dearest had wreaked irreparable
damage to Joan Crawford’s hard-fought-for image. Virtually overnight the name of Joan Crawford
had become an instant punch line (no pun intended, but see how easy that was?).

Faye Dunaway IS Joan Crawford

Diana Scarwid as Christina (adult)

Mara Hobel as Christina (child)

Steve Forrest as Greg Savitt

The audience that crowded the Chinese Theater that opening
day in 1981 was abuzz with that rare kind of anticipation born of knowing you were
about to see a film that promised a rollicking good time whether it was a
triumph or a travesty. A win-win situation!

Much in the manner that the incredibly stylish cubist/art
deco title sequence for Lucille Ball’s Mame(1974) proffered hopes (quickly
dashed) of a classy entertainment that never materialized, Mommie Dearest
got off to a very promising start with a dramatically evocative, cinematically
economical montage detailing the pre-dawn preparations going into the
creation of Joan Crawford, the movie star.

It’s a marvelous sequence of compulsive self-discipline and
dues-paying professionalism that turns a morning bath into a near-religious purging ritual
built upon the duty and sacrifice of stardom. (I particularly like how
Crawford, autographing photos in the back seat of her limo as she’s driven to
the studio, never allows for a moment of idleness. It calls to mind my
perception of what Oprah Winfrey must be like in her private moments…I
seriously don’t know when that woman finds time to sleep.)

Joan Crawford, world-class multi-tasker

For about five minutes, Mommie Dearest really looks
like it’s going to work...and then the audience gets its first look at Faye
Dunaway in her Joan Crawford makeup. Although the transformation is impressive,
the effect is startling in all the wrong ways. Gasps are followed by giggles,
giggles erupt into guffaws, and Mommie Dearest never really regains its
footing.

Which is really too bad, because Dunaway, who works her ass
off, is really rather good (at least in that dicey, Al Pacino in Scarface
/ Jack Nicholson in The Shining way: where a ridiculous performance can
be made to work under the right circumstances).
She deserved a better script, a surer production, and a director
protective enough to rein her in when she went over top. Which, alas, is
pretty often.

Perhaps it was misguided to even attempt to make a serious
motion picture about an actress whose extreme sense of glamour (padded
shoulders, mannish eyebrows, smeary lipstick, and mannered acting style) had long
ago made her a camp gay icon and favorite among drag queens, impressionists,
and parodists (Carol Burnett’s Mildred
Fierce comes to mind). But director Frank Perry (Diary of a Mad Housewife, Last Summer) and a battery of screenwriters only compounded
the risk by failing to find a dramatically viable means of adapting the material.
For starters, the film can't really decide whose story it is. Are we seeing Joan as Christina sees her (in which case Christina's psychological perspective gets incredibly short shrift), or is this a "behind the facade" look at a famous actress (which leaves us wondering, what's the point?).

America
was years away from seriously addressing the issues of parental abuse,
alcoholism, and possible bipolar disorder (the success of 1981's Arthur still pivoted
on how hilarious alcoholics were). Which may explain why the mother-daughter
conflicts in Mommie Dearest…scenes of familial dysfunction worthy of
William Inge…consistently fall short of tapping into the pain at their source.

Mommie Dearest, like its titular subject, gets bogged
down with the superficial. Lacking in depth, the dialog, costuming, and
performances work in concert to turn each of its setpiece scenes into
high-style, $#*! My Mother Says.

The illusion of perfection

WHAT I LOVE ABOUT THIS FILM

I’m guilty of whatever human frailty it is which causes people
to rejoice when cracks are found in the façade of public figures who insist on
portraying themselves and their lives as perfect. I was one of those so shocked by Mommie Dearest’s unmasking of little-miss-perfect Joan Crawford as a
bit of a nutjob, that I failed to pay much attention to the not-so-funny issue
of child abuse, which should have been my focus from the start. Viewing Mommie Dearest today, so many years after its
release, I wonder if the film is not guilty of the same thing. The focus should
have been on the character of Christina, not Joan. It’s her story after all. Since
even the most world-famous parent is likely to be just plain old “mom” or “dad”
to a child, the resultant shift in focus might have offered a less traditional
view of Crawford and saved Mommie Dearest from becoming what it frequently feels like: the world’s longest drag
act.

Joan Crawford's palatial Bel-Air home (top) first appeared as the mansion of gangster J. Sinister Hulk (Jesse White, bottom photo, left) in the 1964 Annette Funicello musical, Pajama Party

PERFORMANCES

In spite of the many hours of enjoyment I've had at Faye Dunaway’s
expense (tears running down my cheeks, cramped stomach
muscles, desperate gasps for air between full-throated howls of joyous laughter),
as I've stated, I really think she does an amazing job in Mommie Dearest.
It’s not so much that she’s good, although she does have her moments; so much
as she’s incredibly brave and frighteningly committed. She throws herself into
the role so wholeheartedly that I don’t know that she can be completely faulted
for failing to land right on the mark.

I’m of the opinion that much of what is accepted as funny
about her portrayal of Joan Crawford is only partially her fault. No insult
intended to the Joan Crawford fans out there, but the real Joan Crawford in
full “Joan-mode” is pretty hilarious. Dunaway’s impersonation is so spot-on
that the laughs she gets can’t really be attributed completely to her performance/impersonation. I mean, those are Joan’s eyebrows and pinched-constipated smile; that is
Crawford’s butch, bitch-queen bossiness; and anyone who’s ever seen the level
of overwrought emotionalism she’s capable of bringing to even the most
easy-going scenes (check out Trog, sometime), knows that even a lot of Faye's overacting belongs to Crawford herself.

Dunaway makes some odd choices (the cross-eyed bit during the wire hangers scene is just
asking for it, and who exactly thought the whole “Don’t fuck with me, fellas!”
line was going to work?), but within the confines of a rather choppy script, there
is an attempt on Dunaway’s part to add some dimension to the at-times
cartoonish monster Mommie Dearest would have us believe is Joan Crawford.

Joan Crawford (center) flanked by the contenders to the throne. Oscar winner Anne Bancroft (r.) was Christina Crawford's personal choice for the role of Joan. When Bancroft declined, Faye Dunaway (who, ironically enough was a favorite of Joan Crawford's) took over the reins.

THE STUFF OF FANTASY

Over the years I’ve come to the conclusion that Mommie
Dearest isn’t a bad film so much as a series of gross miscalculations all
around. Here are just a few things the makers of Mommie Dearest failed to take
into account:

e) Casting a legendarily temperamental actress in the role of a legendarily
temperamental actress encourages the audience to wonder if they're watching Dunaway being Dunaway, or Dunaway being Crawford.

Madonna & Child

THE STUFF OF DREAMS

There was a time
when I really couldn’t get sufficiently past Joan Crawford’s extreme look and
affected style of acting to see her as anything other than a comically camp
timepiece. Over the years I’ve come to appreciate her skill and talent, and
today she’s one of my favorite actresses. Mommie Dearest is
too flawed a film for even nostalgic revisionism to one day convert into a
misunderstood classic; but I think there stands a good chance that time will be
kinder to Faye Dunaway’s performance. Like many of the under-appreciated performances
of Marlon Brando that have come to light to be among his best (Reflections in a Golden Eye), Dunaway’s Joan Crawford may be a bit “out there” at times, but it
is a fascinating, almost athletic performance. Perhaps far more layered and intelligent than
the film deserves.

Understatement of the Year Dept:"Today Faye sees herself 'as starting on a second phase of my professional life, just as Joan Crawford did...'" People Magazine Oct. 1981

Friday, December 16, 2011

All That Jazz is the movie I wish had inspired me to
become a dancer. Bob Fosse's artily stylized, semi-autobiographical, cinematic
dissertation on the artist as self-destructive skirt-chaser, is just the kind
of self-mythologizing fable that appeals to
the romantic notion of the fragility of the creative process.

As stated in an earlier post, the movie that actually inspired
me to abandon my film studies and embark on a 25-year career as a dancer, is the
legendarily reviled roller-skatin' muse project, Xanadu(1980). Don't
get me wrong... Xanadu, in all its
flawed glory, is, and always will be for me, an infinitely more joyous, emotionally
persuasive experience than All That Jazz ever was (those soaring notes
reached by ELO and ONJ on Xanadu’s title track could inspire poetry). It's
just that when one is recounting that seminal, life-altering moment wherein one’s
artistic destiny is met face-to-face, it would be nice to be able to point to a
serious, substantive work like All That
Jazz, instead of a film dubbed
by Variety as being about, "A roller-skating lightbulb."

Roy Scheider as Joe Gideon (a.k.a. Bob Fosse)

Jessica Lange as Angelique (a.k.a. The Angel of Death)

Leland Palmer as Audrey Paris (a.k.a. Gwen Verdon)

Ann Reinking as Kate Jagger (a.k.a. Ann Reinking)

Ben Vereen as O'Connor Flood (a.k.a. Sammy Davis, Jr.)

All that Jazz is
the story of Broadway choreographer Joe Gideon (Roy Scheider); a pill-popping,
chain-smoking, serial-womanizing choreographer/director who struggles to prevent
the demons that fuel his creativity from consuming his life. Simultaneously
mounting a Broadway show and editing a motion picture, Gideon's intensifying
abuse of his health (both physical and mental) manifests, surrealistically, as a
literal love affair/dialog with death (a teasing Jessica Lange). Fosse makes no
effort to mask the fact that Joe Gideon isBob Fosseand All That Jazz is Fosse's 8½; but, as gifted as he is, Bob Fosse is no
Frederico Fellini. His essential shallowness of character (something he takes great pains
to dramatize in the film) makes for the baring of guardedly superficial
insights, leaving the larger philosophical questions of "what price
art?" unaddressed.

All That Jazz asks
us to accept that while Joe Gideon is selfish, an adulterer, a neglectful
father, a philanderer, a manipulator and a liar; but gosh darn it, at least he knows it! Nobody’s perfect, the film seems to be saying, but isn't a little of that imperfection mitigated by their ability to bring art into the world? What Gideon offers as a means of
earthly penance for the pain he causes others, is his genius. And it's a point well-taken, for (at least to me) Fosse's
choreography in All That Jazz is so
brilliant as to justify almost anything. Almost.

And thus we land at what ultimately dissatisfies about All That Jazz.
It purports to be introspective, but at its heart, it’s apologist. Fosse isn’t
invested in getting to the root of what makes Gideon/Fosse tick, so much as pleading a
case for the redemptive power of artistic genius.

"It's showtime, folks!"

I buy happily into the enduring romantic myth of the
tortured, suffering artist. The tortured, suffering artist as asshole? Not so
much. It seems to me a curiously male perspective which allows for the emotional collateral damage of a life of self-indulgence to be tolerated, and ultimately absolved, through one’s art.
(The female equivalent: the fragile, too-sensitive-for-this-world type, more
apt to do harm to herself than others.)

Although were given scene after scene of Joe Gideon indulging in the
self-serving candor of the cheater (“Yes, I’m a dog, but I’m up front about
it!”), these confessions never once feel emotionally revelatory. Rather, they recall this exchange from 1968's Cactus Flower-

Hawn:Julian, please...you're beginning to make it sound
like bragging.

Personally, I'm waiting for the day when someone will make a film that sheds
some light on what kind of women attach themselves to artistic, self-centered
men - never resenting having toplay
second, third, or sixth fiddle - as they float, like interchangeable satellites, in
the orbit of genius.

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Gaydar Setting? Off the ChartDime-store psychologists seeking the origins of Bob Fosse's serial-womanizing need look no further than these two dishy publicity stills from early in Fosse's dance career. This guy must have felt he had something to prove.It couldn't have been easy being a heterosexual (possibly bisexual) dancer in an era when all male dancers were presumed to be gay (the 40s & 50s) and the pervasive concepts of masculinity (none of which applied to the slight-framed, thin-voiced Fosse) were particularly narrow.The phenomenon is dramatized in the 1977 ballet film, The Turning Point when a heterosexual male dancer admits to marrying and having a child at a young age in an effort to prove to himself he wasn't gay.

WHAT I LOVE ABOUT THIS FILM

If you haven't yet gleaned it, I'm not overly fond of the
autobiographical structure of All That
Jazz's plot. But much like the women who put up with Joe Gideon because he's
a genius of dance, I confess that I endure the clichéd narrative just so that I can enjoy the stupendous dance sequences. Bob Fosse is my favorite choreographer of all time, and
his work here is beyond splendid. It's absolutely amazing, and among the best
of his career.

A legend on Broadway, director/choreographer/sometime-actor
Bob Fosse directed but three movie musicals (Sweet Charity, Cabaret,
and All That Jazz), yet their
influence on dance and the genre of movie musical in general has been far-reaching
and incalculable. Raked over the coals by critics for the stylistic excesses of
1969s Sweet Charity (Pauline Kael
went so far as to call the film "Adisaster"); by the time these talents were honed and polished to a
fine gloss in Cabaret (1972), Fosse's
fluidly kinetic camerawork and slice and
dice style of editing eventually became the definitive visual style for
contemporary movie musicals.

What has always struck me about Fosse's dance style was how
it was so perfect for the female form. If the lines of classic ballet
celebrated the idealized feminine form— ethereal and untouchable—Fosse's
sensuous style took woman off the pedestal and celebrated her sensuality and
reveled in her carnal vulgarity. Drawing from his days in burlesque, Fosse's style somehow
sidesteps the passive, camp allure of the showgirl and captures an exhibitionistic
hyperfemininity that carries with it a touch of danger. To watch the way Gwen
Verdon moves as Lola in Damn Yankees
is to see the pin-up ideal come to life. I've always thought that if a Vargas Girl portrait could move, she'd move like a Bob Fosse dancer.

PERFORMANCES

Fosse elicits many fine performances from his cast. Roy
Scheider, a non-dancer, is surprisingly good, displaying an easy charm behind a
keyed-up physicality that makes him believable as dancer and object of
masochistic female affection (my heart blanches at the thought of originally-cast Richard Dreyfuss in the role). Leland Palmer is perhaps my favorite; a fabulous
dancer and one of those actresses whose edgy quality makes you keep your eye on
her even when she's not pivotal to the scene.
No surprise that Ann Reinking is
a phenomenally talented dancer and truly a marvel to watch, but it's nice that
she also displays an easy, husky-voiced naturalness in her non-dancing scenes. Jessica
Lange has had such an impressive career that it's easy to forget her debut
in King Kong (1976) almost turned her
into the Elizabeth Berkley of the '70s. Wisely turning her back on Hollywood's
blonde-of-the-month publicity machine, Lange took three years off and reemerged
in the small but pivotal role in All That
Jazz which successfully showcased her ability to do more than look pretty
sitting in an ape's paw.

Flirting with Death

T

he brilliance that is All
That Jazz pretty much extends to everything but the central conceit of the
plot (which somehow worked for Fellini and no one else. Rob Marshall's Nine was pretty dismal). Fosse gets
Fellini's cinematographer, Giuseppe Rottuno (Fellini Satyricon), to give the film a smoky sheen, the music is
sparkling, and the dreamy stylization employed throughout is sometimes
breathtakingly inventive. One just wishes they weren't in the service of such
meager emotional epiphanies.

THE STUFF OF FANTASY

In the book, On the
Line: The Creation of A Chorus Line, the collective of authors (several members of the
original Broadway cast) recall how, after sever years of film treatments,
director/choreographer Michael Bennett was unable to land on a satisfactory
method to translate his show to the screen. All involved in A Chorus Line thought that Fosse
had, for all intents and purposes,beat
them to the punch and delivered (in a virtuoso eight-minute opening sequence),
everything that a screen adaptation of A
Chorus Line should have been. And indeed, the opening of All That Jazz is a matchless example of film as storyteller. It's
so perfect, it's like a documentary short.

THE STUFF OF DREAMS

I'm crazy about all of the dancing in All That Jazz. Understandably, most people recall the remarkable"Take Off With Us/ Air-otica" number, but I
have a particular fondness for "Bye Bye Love/Life" number that ends
the film. A fantasy fever dream/nightmare taking place in the mind of Joe
Gideon as he slips away on a hospital bed, this number is outrageous in concept
and phenomenal in execution. We're in Ken Russell territory when you have a
dying man dressed in sequins (complete with silver open-heart surgery scar) singing
his own eulogy to an audience of everyone he's ever encountered in his life,
while flanked by gyrating dancers dressed as diagrams of the human circulatory system.

WOW!

I never tire of watching this number, as it appeals to both
the dancer and film enthusiast in me. Fosse, whose signature style consisted of
small moves, isolations, and minimal gestures, always seemed better suited to
the movies than the stage. He ushered in the use of the camera and editor as
collaborative choreographers, punctuating the rhythms and drawing the eye to
the details.

Bob Fosse passed away in 1987, mere months after the death of
his closest professional peer/rival, Michael Bennett. Broadway and dance suffered a loss that year that I don't think it has ever recovered from. Bennett didn't live long
enough to leave his stamp on cinema, but lucky for us, Fosse left a recorded
legacy that represents the best of cinema dance as art. "Thank you" doesn't begin to cover the debt of gratitude.

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LIZ SMITH'S COLUMN - Feb. 18, 2016

Raves for Dreams Are What Le Cinema Is For...: "I suggest that everybody who loves movies — and has a good sense of humor — visit this site, which has been around for about five years. Mr. Anderson writes lovingly, intelligently and wittily about movies he adores. And not just the usual suspects, either, although they are abundant. He takes seriously, more or less, 'bad' films such as 'Valley of the Dolls' or Elizabeth Taylor's famously campy 'Boom!' This is a great site, with fine writing and an unusual perspective." (Click on banner for full article)

About Me

"Life is too short without dreaming, and dreams are what le cinema is for."

This blog gets its title from a lyric to a song from the 1982 Broadway Musical, "Nine" by Arthur Kopit and Maury Yeston. This blog explores my lifetime love affair with the movies and examines the specific films that are, truly, the stuff that dreams are made of.

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BLOG: Dreams Are What Le Cinema Is For ... Ken Anderson's hypnotic blog — fabulously illustrated with movie screen caps — takes its title from a lyric from the musical Nine, so it's not surprising that his insightful writing about his lifelong love affair with movies is so deliriously entertaining. You'll fill up your Netflix queue after reading Anderson's reappraisals of an eclectic mix of films, including the heretofore unappreciated Ann-Margret vehicle Kitten With a Whip and one of Streisand's lesser musicals, On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, which are written with the same zeal as his takes on acknowledged masterpieces such as Robert Altman's sprawling Nashville. Jeremy Kinser

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